So, iTunes was promoting the album “Songs for Tibet” and caused resentment among Chinese both overseas and in China. A couple of days ago, iTunes Store was blocked by China. It was a big deal for the western media because they found another thing they can attack.

“It seems like suspending iTunes is punishment for iTunes, but really it doesn’t hurt iTunes, it hurts us,” said a note on macfans.com.cn, a Chinese site for Apple users.

I was totally surprised. So I went to macfans.com.cn and found out that, the main thread talking about the block, people are NOT complaining it is blocked. Chinese people on this forum agreed iTunes should pay for this. What they actually said were like this:

Oh, I thought it was my software’s problem I cannot access it.

This time Apple did something inappropriate, there’s nothing we can say now.

This time they (the great firewall) reacted too slow.

Isn’t it on iTunes before the olympics? They are too slow to react.

They deserved it by violating Chinese law and regulation; the block came too late!

Apple has no common sense and made a big mistake.

Great!

Apple doesn’t care about Chinese people.

I demand the custom ban all Apple products from import. Show Steve Jobs we mean business!

In Jobs’ eyes there is no Chinese market. He doesn’t care.

I support the ban.

If there is content on MobileMe that supports Tibet independence, it should be banned too.

and many more like these.

So I have yet to see anyone who is actually annoyed by the ban. Totally different from what AP reported. Yet, Americans will believe whatever they read. And they will call Chinese brainwashed if we don’t believe what their media like AP says. Because western media has mastered the art of propaganda.

Wall-E. I finally watched it today. Has been expecting this since Ratatouille. It is an amazing movie. With so little dialogs in this movie, it successful became the best Robot movie ever made, IMO. If you want a moving, touching Robot movie, look no further, A.I. or I, Robot are not comparable.

Aside from everything that’s great, the human plot is the weakest. I often felt it ruined some of the good about this movie. And it is not really convincing. However, an happy ending is always expected for such kind of movie. If only there is an artistic version of Wall-E may we see alternative ending. But I cannot really blame.

So apparently, Ratatouille is probably the best rat movie. Now introducing the best robot movie.

And, to some extend, this movie is indeed, sort of, an Apple commercial.

Oh, I think the soundtrack is nice too. Although sometimes I dislike some reprising at some scenes.

Time capsule, a combination of hard drive and airport extreme is a sweet idea. The hard drive is server grade, meaning it is much less likely to fail. However, Time Capsule is expensive, and cannot be easily expanded or upgraded.

Luckily Apple made Airport Disk compatible with Time Machine since Mac OS X 10.5.2, although it is an unsupported feature. But anyone who is budget sensitive can enjoy wireless whole system backup.

The problem is, many people like me have been using Time Machine with external hard drive for a while now. We don’t want to lose our older backups. However, Apple has not provided us a tool to migrate our backups from these external hard drives to Time Capsule or Airport Extreme Base Station’s Airport Disk. We cannot simply copy these files to Airport Disk, because of hard links. And Apple uses folders to store backups when the hard drive is attached to the computer. But sparse bundle disk image is used on Time Capsule or Airport Disk.

I searched online and could not find a tutorial to solve this migration problem. After doing some research, I have solved this problem, so I am sharing my experience with you, with the following tutorial I believe is easy enough for anyone to do it.

The new iPods are released for a while now. And Microsoft just announce Zune 2. I think it is time for me to do a short review on the new iPods.

iPod Touch: 3 out of 5 stars.Pro:
Revolutionary user interface with multi-touch. Big screen. Wi-Fi and Safari web browsing. Over-the-air music purchasing.Con:
Very limited storage not good for storing videos. No wireless sync. Cannot input Calendar items. Does not support 3rd party applications. No bluetooth. No microphone. Apple evilly and intentionally made iPod touch a very limited device.Bottom line:
It is a fancy device and does what it can do very well.

iPod Classic: 2 out of 5 starsPro:
Larger storage, cheaper and metal case, enhanced user interfaceCon:
Only black and silver color option. NO bigger screen, NOT compatible with older iPod games, NO higher resolution, NO any kind of wireless, has not changed much for over 2 years, and that’s the worst thing ever.

iPod nano: 3 out of 5 starsPro:
Bigger screen. Ability to play video. Will have games. Color is okay. Cheaper while larger storage. Enhanced user interface.Con:
Fat form factor is not as charming as previous version. Color is okay but not vibrant as previous version. Polished metal back prone to scratches, a step back from previous version. Nothing really exciting.

iPod Shuffle 2nd gen
Remain unchanged. Even the price. Boo! Apple should have lowered at least $10 for the shuffle.

Overall the current product line of iPods are very disappointing. Without the halo, it is barely competitive in terms of specs.